Netherlands Highlights

Right now, I'm on school break, which means travel time!
The last five days I spent traveling through the Netherlands in the Noord-Holland district.  Here are some highlights from my trip:

* Walking around and boating along the canals and streets of Amsterdam.
Canals really shape Amsterdam, and lots of the Netherlands in general.  In older parts of town, they are flanked by lots of old skinny houses with decorated gables.  Basically, every street and house is a photo opportunity.  In certain sections there are also many cool shops and galleries.  I also took a canal tour in a little boat - not one of the main sightseeing ones - and enjoyed seeing the city from the water.
* Seeing the Dutch paintings in the Rijksmuseum
As Dutch baroque painting is one of my favorite styles, I loved seeing several Rembrandts, plus 2 Vermeers, and other still life and genre scenes.  
* Culinary highlights: Smoked herring and Appeltaart, plus some cheese
I went to Enkhuizen for the open air museum with lots of old houses from a fishing village and other towns you can wander through.  They also had a booth where they were smoking herring; so delicious!  Apple tart is also a specialty in the Netherlands.  It's different than the US pie in that it has a very thick crust and a streusel topping.  I had two cheese sandwiches, which I figured one should do in the Netherlands, and the cheese was good and very cheesy tasting.

Herring in preparation

* Biking around
Bikes are of course one of the main modes of transportation in the Netherlands.  Amsterdam's center is fairly compact to begin with, but a bike makes it incredibly easy to get around.  I also enjoyed biking in the Zuid-Kennemer national park near Haarlem with a dune landscape.  There I learned the hard way that not all of the Netherlands is flat! My legs got quite a workout!
* Touring a windmill in Haarlem
For some reason I had only linked windmills to water removal, but they really are work machines that can grind grain, shells, and paper pulp and saw wood, among other things.  It was neat to take a tour of a working windmill and see just how all the parts fit together.


So those are a few highlights, but I visited many other museums and saw many other sights as well.  All in all, it was a really great trip!  Though it's nice to have a day more to relax, this is a trip I did not want to end.  But luckily I still have this week to figure out some more little outings.